Stovepipe Johnson

Adam Rankin "Stovepipe" Johnson (February 6, 1834 – October 20, 1922) was an antebellum Western frontiersman and later an officer in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War. Johnson obtained fame leading the Newburgh Raid using a force of only about 35 men. Johnson and his men confiscated supplies and ammunition without firing a shot by deceiving Newburgh's defenders into thinking Confederate cannons surrounded the town. In reality, the "cannons" were an assemblage of a stove pipe, a charred log, and wagon wheels, forever giving Johnson the nickname of Adam "Stovepipe" Johnson. Permanently blinded during an 1864 skirmish, in 1887, Johnson founded the town of Marble Falls, Texas, which became known as "the blind man's town."